Radu BORCEA’s Post

To go or not to go. That’s the divisive debate.   I’m here to give you an honest perspective about purposefully coming into the office or purposefully staying at home.   I’m one of the people who got hit by the pandemic hard. From a very social person, I became a recluse. It was by choice that I didn’t get vaccinated, and it was by chance that I got Covid in the last two weeks of lockdown in Romania. (And it was a kind reminder that things don’t last forever when my job in Event Management got shot down…)   Coming back into society I felt deep anxiety, I was unhappy with my body and my new habits, and I had major difficulties regaining momentum and harmony in my routine.    I managed to find balance in hybrid work. Nobody made me come to the office. It was of my own free will. I missed hanging out with colleagues, I missed mentoring face to face and I missed the friendly gossip that more than once landed me new project opportunities and sometimes even a new role.   The grape wine works best in person. When I am in the office, I make a point to connect with folks, hear how they are, what are their latest challenges, how is it that I can help, what’s the latest news in their disciplines… etc. I try to have at least one meeting per week with someone who sits outside of my function. That’s how I stay connected to the overall picture and these are the moments I use on purpose to engage and try to help my colleagues.   When I’m in the office I tend to have a tight schedule so when I leave the building, I also leave work. I do the best that I can in the time that I have.   When I am at home, I tend to be more flexible. I take meetings late into the evening or early in the morning and intentionally rest a bit when I feel down. Twice a quarter I have separate community calls with my colleagues in APAC and my colleagues in the Americas and EMEA. I meet the APAC crew early in the morning (between 4AM and 6AM), and I huddle with the rest of the group in the afternoon. Those are the days that I stay at home and make a point to balance out chores with my to do list so everything gets done.   Most Fridays are fun days, because I spend them away from both the office and my home. Found different groups of colleagues and of friends who want to spend the morning in café’s talking and having a few laughs until we all head back home for afternoon calls.   I admit : I wouldn’t go back into the office fully, 5 days is a whole lot, but I wouldn’t stay at home for 5 days either. Instead, I purposefully go, and I purposefully stay. I have the best of both worlds.   My advice is: don’t dismiss hybrid work just because you feel comfortable fully remote. And don’t do it the other way round either. Think about how you can purposefully use your time and network, online and offline, to advance your goals and plan the next step in your career. Shout out to : Nicoleta Nuță, Ioana Topciu, Cristina Negoescu

I love a good debate. I am probably not the best equipped person for some debates, but I love to hear people's perspectives. Women vs. Men has always been a hot topic, even though the professional barriers between genders are blurrier and blurrier. But bias still exists so we need to do a better job on separating the gender from the professional. This is a good discussion to follow on the latest Open Talks podcast. Congratulations Silviu Andrei Petran for powering such needed conversations and Luminita Florea and Diana Bart for bringing it to life.

My friend, Lindsay E., is currently searching for a new career opportunity! Let's all show her some love! She's one of the good ones!

Adina Carmen Frâncu, my lovey dovey, is up to some great things, and this podcast is one of them.

Core memory was made! I started off this week talking about the inclusion of women and mothers into the workplace to an amazing group of graduates from Scoala de HR. And my mom got teary eyed when I shared what I was doing. I had no idea how lonely and challenged she felt raising me. My dad died when I was 7. She was only 35. She never remarried, she never had a relationship again. All she had was the weight of the world on her shoulders. Her time off was spent in the countryside working with me grandparents. She worked so I could have the best chance possible of going to collage and making a man out of myself. She is only one of the thousands of women who carry worlds on their shoulders. A recent study shows that women see their woman hood last in the list of priorities. They are mothers, care givers, professionals, wives, and last women. Inclusion is not about looking at minorities or under represented groups, it's about looking at the entire community and making it safe for each individual to grow, find their purpose and thrive in living it. So, next time you meet your mother or any mother for that matter ask her : How is it for you? And you might find a different perspective of what being inclusive should really mean. Congratulations Andra Pintican for being the amazing human you are and for bringing us together for such powerful conversations.

A one of a kind podcast powered by OPEN MINDS | ONG and Andra Pintican. I am so happy to be part of a community that is starting conversations often overlooked by society. It's about time that we have hard conversations for a better future.

Just because you love doing something, does not mean you get to do it everyday. I adore this picture. I like to think this is the picture that started it all. I was passionate about cars from a young age and my parents tell me that one of the first words I said was “Auto“. I used to hold my dad by his hand as we walked the boulevard and tell him what makes of cars we passed by. Car rides were sometimes the only way for me to fall asleep as a baby. To this day I take drives to calm myself down and to decompress after a long day. I found my calling writing about cars and I thought it will be my career, but that got cut short. At 21, after my second job as a magazine editor, I had to look for a new job. I stayed unemployed for six months trying to freelance, but that was a bust. I then joined one of these big multinationals and jumped around from one company to another. I always looked back and said the day would come when I will find my way back writing about cars. It never happened. I am still connected to the car world, but I do something completely different as a job. A job that I am very much passionate about, because it feeds other parts of me. What I want to say is : stay passionate until the end. Just because you don’t do what you love with all your being everyday doesn’t mean you are cheating or lying to yourself. Stay passionate, stay focused on what you need to do and find your way back to your love everyday. When I look at this picture I don’t see just a kid passionate about a car, I see a happy kid, who is just excited to be there, to take a photo, to interact with people and to spread the love. Neither of those things changed in 34 years. And they never will. 

Do you care? A couple of days ago I was walking in the center of Bucharest as I was approached by a young man gathering signatures so a political party could participate in the European Parliament election. I was in a hurry to get to a meeting but for the first time ever I stopped to talk to him. I have never voted in the elections for the European Parliament and I felt it was the time to acknowledge this and take a stand. So I said : “I will give you my signature if you tell me what are your candidates going to do to help diverse groups such as LGBT, people with diverse abilities or the elderly, in light of recents discriminatory laws and the seemingly uncontrolled rise of artificial intelligence.“ Needless to say that I got no reply other than : “Please check on our website“. Well, I cannot support a person or a party who don’t have a plan or who, even worse, are so superficial to head into an election without a plan to support those who give the vote. But what I can do is do my own research and pick. Or I could ask the top candidates directly. They have websites, they have linkedin profiles. Why not ask? Why aren’t we all going to them with all the questions we want answered so we could give them the vote with the upmost confidence? Do you care enough to ask? 

What made you stay with IBM for so long? Patricia Pavani, I spent this past Saturday meeting future IBMers at a career fair here in Bucharest and one of them wanted to know how much time has passed since my first day in IBM. Well, this is my 17th year of being employed and my 9th with IBM, which means I spent half of my professional life with Big Blue. And if that was not enough, I was also asked what made me stay for so long with the same employer. The question caught me off guard and I almost gave an answer worthy of a job fair : the community, the compensation, the opportunities, the global exposure, the brand… But I stopped myself and thought about something one of my mentors told me a while back : be the person you needed at that point in your existence. So I gave a straight and personal answer : IBM challenged me. IBM challenged me to learn new things, to improve others, to pursue opportunities outside my comfort zone, to believe in my skills and to think strategically. And that’s the truth. IBM is a challenging place. I started out my career writing articles for an automotive magazine when I was 17 and my only goal in life was to be a magazine editor. Yet today I am creating engagement across boarders and cultures in the IBM Marketing & Communications organization. It’s not something I planned, but it’s something I found along the way through being included in a supportive community, through solid work and by building relationships with mentors who had a vision I could be inspired by. Solid work is not worth much if it’s not appreciated in the community and we can’t evolve if we don’t support one another. I think it’s really simple. Isn’t it? I know challenges are not easy. I know comfort zones come with safety and peace of mind, but I also know that I’ve learnt more in these past 9 years than in the 8 before them. I discovered I could do anything as long as I believed in myself. I discovered I could use my skills and create impact in areas I did not dare to explore before. I worked with some amazing people whom I learned a lot from, and I did the unthinkable : I got up on stage to talk to hundreds of people about my work with Employee Resource Groups. I think we can all agree that finding the right environment to grow in is the most important aspect when searching for a new role. For me, being part of the IBM team was a turning point in my career. And it can be for you too. Because our team is growing. Explore our job opportunities at ibm.biz/mcccareers2024 . Santosh Kumar, how has life been for you as an IBMer?

First time participant at Angajatori de TOP . Such an amazing crowd, filled with youth eager to make impact in the world and professionals who want to try something new. Stop by the booth! Say hi!